I can't say often enough how blessed I am to have found Mary's blog years ago. I have gotten so many wonderful recipes there and dared to try new things because of her easy to follow instructions. This one is so delicious that though we had a piece at lunch, I find myself still marveling at it at bedtime! It's not hard to make either. You can see her beautiful post here.

This was my first time trying those paper loaf baking pans. They work great! Makes gift giving easy too. Two thumbs up for paper loaf pans and Home Goods for carrying them!

It was also my first time making orange zest. I do lemon, but hadn't run across orange zest before this. I love making dark chocolate dipped candied orange peel, but this was my first orange zest. It is FANTASTIC and I'll be using a lot more of it. Oh how wonderful the house smelled while it was cooking and long afterward!

I made the first batch within hours of seeing her post, but I couldn't find pistachios or any cranberries except dried ones in the salad topping isle. The recipe calls for two cups of chopped cranberries and a cup of chopped pistachios. I bought three bags (1 cup each) of these salad toppings to equal those three cups.

The dried cranberries didn't show as brightly red on the top of the loaves as hers did with the fresh cranberries, but when you cut it, they were beautiful. The candied pecans went perfectly! This bread was so luscious, crunchy crust and tender and moist inside...wonderful!

I made a second batch a couple of days later. This time I was able to find the fresh cranberries and pistachios, so I made it by her recipe exactly. Well, I still used sanding sugar on top instead of regular sugar. It gives such a great sparkle! It was so much prettier with all the red everywhere and green pistachios, but every single person that had both said they preferred the first batch where I substituted the dried cranberries and candied pecans. Surprising.

Isn't that gorgeous??? Fresh cranberries and fresh rosemary on a snowy bed of sugar! Maybe you'll try it too! Don't you just love giving your baked goodies away to brighten other's days and give God glory? Merry Christmas, God bless you and yours and thanks for stopping by!

I finally found wonderful chocolate and vanilla/almond sugar cookie
recipes that do not expand when cooked!!! After years of frustration
with my cutout and stamped cookies, finally SUCCESS and DELICIOUS
results!!!! Here is the link to the sugar cookie recipe I used.

The first post was using the vanilla/almond sugar cookie recipe to make mini cookie houses.

Yesterday's post was using the same recipe for cutout cookies decorated in marshmallow fondant and edible marker.

This Christmas baking was the first time I had the large Wilton fondant rolling pin and rings for my rolling pin that make it so the thickness is consistent. Having that long a rolling pin was AWESOME and, why didn't we ALWAYS have these rings??? It made an incredible difference in consistency and baking results. Look at this perfect stack of cookies!! I know the rolling pin is pricey, but I used a 40% off coupon at Michael's for both the pin and later the rings. Makes it just fine!

The lone bear is a stand in for our "Judahbear", my first granchild. It's my first Christmas as a grandma!!! It's wonderful even with them out of state. Thank You Jesus!

This was my first attempt at stenciling. I made royal icing to stencil with onto my chocolate cookies. I don't think I ever found the exact right consistency for stenciling, but they still turned out pretty, if you don't look too close. I used a small fondant tool to clean up areas where they needed it. It was a pretty messy deal. I found that I had to wash and dry my stencils every 2-3 cookies to have a chance at a sharp image. But oh my goodness - they are DELICIOUS!!!!

I had some templates that were the right size for cupcakes and cookies, but I also had a set that was for cake tops. I positioned them so that I could use parts of the stencil for a cookie. It's going to take a bit of practice before I get good at this! But it sure was fun finally getting to try it! I like the 3D of the design.

It's so exciting to finally have both recipes that will allow me to make perfect cutout and stamped cookies in both white and brown with no more failure! And they both taste marvelous too. I hope you try these two recipes if you haven't yet found the right ones. You won't be disappointed! Merry Christmas, God bless you and yours and thanks for stopping by!

This is part 2 following yesterday's post. I had to break it up into three parts so it wouldn't be too long.

I finally found wonderful chocolate and vanilla/almond sugar cookie
recipes that do not expand when cooked!!! After years of frustration
with my cutout and stamped cookies, finally SUCCESS and DELICIOUS
results!!!! Here is the link to the sugar cookie recipe I used.

Yesterday's post was using this recipe to make mini cookie houses. Today I'll show you what else I made with this delicious recipe that is so perfect for cutout and stamped cookies!

I topped some of the cookies with a thin layer of homemade marshmallow fondant. I wrote messages on them with food grade edible marker from Americolor. I topped them with snowflakes I made from the fondant too and various sprinkles that I attached with invisible edible glue I'd made for working with fondant and gumpaste.

They were awfully delicate, even when dry. A better plan would be to use gumpaste. It dries faster and to a HARD result. I had some left over gumpaste. I don't know why I didn't just use it!

What a wonderful recipe! Delicious AND it doesn't expand and ruin your cookies!

I have to say a word about Tupperware. These cookies are sitting on top the same Tupperware container I got when I briefly sold Tupperware in 1979! It's still perfect and has always been our family cookie storage container. It is a very happy Christmas memory for all of us. My youngest told me this year she needs one of these too, now that she's a Mother, to make memories for her little darling. It warms me with the memories, but also saddens me that America has so made money it's god, that everything today is deliberately made to fail and need replaced in a brief period of time. There will be no such good memories for those going forward, as nothing lasts.

I'll leave you with these pretty cookies and tomorrow I'll share the chocolate stenciled cookies. I hope this was helpful! Merry Christmas, God bless you and yours and thanks for stopping by!